Nikon DS Qi2

[silver19970709@gmail.com]

Hello all,

I want to use LabView to control the Nikon DS Qi2 microscope camera, but it cannot be detected in NI MAX. I found the SDK provided by Nikon, but I don't know how to package it into an interface that can connect LabView and cameras via USB. Has anyone done any research or have any suggestions?

Thanks and regards,

Silver

[Bob_Schor]

I put "Nikon DS Qi2" in a Google search (to learn something about the Camera and whether it was compatible with GenICam), and the only "hit" for this model was this very Post!  Where can we learn about this Camera and its software to help you with "suggestions"?

Bob Schor

[silver19970709@gmail.com]

Here I got the camera's SDK and development example and I tried to wrap the dll and call it with LabView. But undefined symbol errors were reported in ''import shared library''. Because I'm not good at C/C++, I don't know how to set the preprocessor definitions.

[rolfk]

If you are not good at C/C++, trying to import a camera API into LabVIEW is DEFINITELY NOT a good way to start! Cameras always involve complicated APIs which require specific memory buffers being allocated, resized, freed and copied around extensively. That is even for experienced C programmers quite a challenge to get right. For someone used to the automatic memory handling as LabVIEW does, it is going to be at best a very "crashing" experience.

Unless Nikon also provides a .Net API, your best bets are to either choose a different camera that is natively supported by NI-IMAQ or to hire someone who has real LabVIEW and in-depth C knowledge and let them do the LabVIEW to SDK interface.

.Net is somewhat easier because it has its own managed system and the LabVIEW .Net functions properly translate between the two quite different managed paradigms almost seamlessly. However .Net APIs tend in itself to be quite complicated and can pose a challenge to find which object classes need to be instantiated in which order and how everything relates to each other. So it's not a trivial exercise either.

Actually, there is probably a better option, check out this post: https://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW/Nikon-ti2/m-p/4347152#M1275313